Around the year 1980, in a small city of Michigan, USA, it appeared a new music genre, called Techno. It was created by Kevin Sauderson, Juan Atkins and Derrik Mar, initially starting as another type of music, the electronic one. Throughout the years there have appeared more branches of this genre, for example: Chicago house, electro, funk, electric jazz. Techno has a certain musical definition: the repetition of a certain techno music samples, with the parallel usage of a DJ set. The time used is the most common, 4/4, using also a kick drum, that marks each quarter note pulse.
So many categories have resulted from this type of music that is very difficult to talk about them all, but I think that every one of you has heard about the Detroit sound. When it was created, there were combined types as disco, soul, funk, and types of electro, ignoring the traditional R&B or the classic notes of soul music. In this way, the technology was used to create this music, this procedure being thought as a mistake at first. After some time had passed, it was succeeded to be liked by everybody.
There is another well known techno type and it is called The Chicago House. “Strings of Life” is one of the songs that represents best this type and it has been created for the desire of showing how Chicago was in the middle of the ‘80s decade and how house music was then. Next on our list we are able to encounter the acid house. This is a type of techno that went viral soon amongst the listeners, after appearing in the UK. It grew very fast in a short period, clubbers starting to love it more and more.
Some time passed and the first album of techno appeared. It brought together all the branches that were descending from this particular style. Even though it was a revolutionary item that was hoped to break the sales, only a short number of people went to buy it. Still, it was a big step to creating a new style of music.
As years passed by, techno music passed through many stages: firstly it was embraced by the Germans, that called it the “Tekkno”, followed by the apparition of the minimal techno. In 1991, there can be observed a particular evolution of this style, by the apparition of the “intelligent techno”, which was a new and reinvented underground type. It brought new beats and also it succeeded in combining styles as the Dutch Gabber, the Schranz or breakbeat hardcore.
The best way for producing techno music is considered to be the compositional technique. You place many devices capable of giving unique and diverse timbers inside the studio. After that, they will be synchronized generally to a tool that will connect with a computer sequencer, resulting in the capacity of the instruments of making synchronized sounds.
As a result, even though the technology has reached an advanced stage, bringing us enough tools to use as we need, the music has also evolved. Nowadays, we have reached another level of possibilities in creating techno music, by the performing computers and live coding. Unfortunately, the note of do it yourself has become a myth, since the artists can make their own personalized sounds now.
